Science Grade 8 Lesson Plan 8
Making meaning of Meteoroids, Meteors and Meteorites
Key Idea
Analyzing the nature and origin of meteors and meteorites helps scientists to explain natural phenomena that occur
with our planet as well as how the Solar System formed. Component 1: Short Review
Time: 7 minutes
Ask students to answer the following questions on their worksheet.
Q1. What is a meteor?
Q2. What impacts can meteors have?
Q3. How are Meteors, Meteorites and Meteoroids related?
Ask students to volunteer their answers, giving positive feedback. Read out a sample answer for all students to listen
to and write down. This may come from one of the students or from the sample answers below.
Sample answers:
Q1. • A fireball. or A fireball from space. or A shooting star.
Q2. • They burn up in the sky.
• They can blast the ground, form craters.
• They could hit planes.
Q3. • They are the same.
• They form from one another – a meteorite is from a meteor.
Component 2: Lesson Purpose/Intention
Time: 3 minutes
The lesson is about learning how to describe scientific phenomena accurately.
e.g., We want to be sure we can tell the difference between natural space objects that come into the atmosphere.
Component 3: Lesson Language Practice
Time: 5 minutes
Read out difficult or unfamiliar words or phrases and ask the students to read them to themselves and then out loud
as a class.
friction, meteor, meteorite, meteoroid, composition, random
Ask the students to practice saying the words in a sentence.
e.g.: “Friction causes heat.” or ‘Random is unpredictable or erratic movement.”
Ask students to volunteer their answers, giving positive feedback and discussing.
Component 4: Lesson Activity
Time: 25 minutes
Component 4A Meteoroids, Meteors and Meteorites
The major members of the Solar System are the Sun, the planets and the moons.
Meteoroids are minor astronomical objects, like asteroids and comets, but they are usually much, much smaller.
They are typically pebble-sized but could be a little smaller or a little larger. Some can be quite big, up to 5
meters wide. Meteoroids, like asteroids and comets, are thought to be leftovers from when the planets and
moons formed about 4.6 billion years ago. As well, they might be small pieces of an asteroid or a comet created
from a collision.
Meteoroids orbit the Sun as do the planets, moons, asteroids, and comets, but their movements are more
random, and sometimes they stray into the orbit of the Earth with interesting effects.
A meteor is formed when a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere. As the meteoroid enters the atmosphere
it will be travelling at a very high speed and the friction between the meteoroid and the atmosphere causes it to
get hot. When a meteoroid is in the atmosphere, we call it meteor. It can begin to glow, and it can begin to burn
up. Because it is travelling fast, it produces a streak of light and people call it a shooting star. It might burn up
completely in the atmosphere, or it might not all burn!
A meteorite is the name for an object from space that survives from burning up as it travels through the
atmosphere, and lands on the ground. In other words, a meteorite is a meteor that did not all burn up when
travelling through Earth’s atmosphere. Meteorites are usually either rocky or metallic. The biggest found on
Earth are a few meters across; the heaviest weighs about 60,000 kilograms. When large meteorites land on the
ground, they can form a crater, called an Impact crater. The largest impact crater discovered has a diameter of
about 100 kilometers. Scientists study meteor paths to find out where meteorites come from. They study their
composition to work out what the Solar system was made of 4.6 billion years ago.
Component 4B
Read out the following questions and ask students to answer in the space on their worksheet.
Q1. How big is a typical meteoroid?
Q2. What are some Major astronomical objects? What are some Minor astronomical objects?
Q3. What would you have to know to predict if a big meteoroid (0.5 meter wide and 500 kg heavy) would
become a meteorite by surviving burning up in Earth’s atmosphere?
Observe students’ answers. Ask students to volunteer answers, giving positive feedback. Select a good
sample of answers to write down. This may come from students or from the sample.
Sample answers:
Q1. • Pebble sized. about 5 cm.
Q2. • Major are Sun, planets and moons.
• Minor are asteroids, comets, meteoroids, meteors and meteorites.
Q3. • You would need to know things like its speed, composition, angle of entry and compare that with
information about other meteorites that have landed on Earth.
Q3. Comets and meteors can glow brightly in the night sky and so they can be seen by people on Earth. How would
you distinguish a comet from a meteor if you saw them in the night sky?
Ask the students to volunteer answers, giving positive feedback. Select a good sample answer for students to
write down. This may come from one student or from the following sample answers.
Sample answers:
Q1. • an asteroid
Q2. • sample completed diagram:
Q3. • A meteor would only be visible for a very short time, unless it was very big and does
not all burn up before it hits the ground. Even so, that would only take about 10-20
seconds. It would look very close, closer than stars. A comet will be visible each night for
many weeks or months and would not look like it is moving, relative to the stars, unless
you studied it closely for a few hours. It would look like it is a long way away – amongst
the stars.
Component 5: Lesson Conclusion
Time: 5 minutes
Could you find any answers to questions in the text provided for Component 4? Which
ones?
1. Yes – Q1 and Q2 in Component 4B.
2. Yes – Q1 and Q2 in Component 4C.
[You might explain to students that it is good learning technique to look for answers
in a text or stimulus. Doing this also helps you understand what is needed to answer many
questions]
3. What connections or differences do you notice between questions in 4B and 4C.
The First set was only about meteoroids, meteors and meteorites; For the second set, you
needed to remember information about comets and about how meteors and comets are
different.